In Grammar^x, Dialects^x

Julielai wrote: Just out of curiosity, Mr. P, how do you distinguish a native speaker who's learned a non-standard form of English from a decent non-native speaker? (e.g. How can you tell if a speaker born in India, Singapore or other Asian countries is native?) Hello Julie I'm not sure I...

Note; I look at verb usage from the point of The Principal of General Use. If there are inconsitencies in the way "have to" and "must" are used in BrEng, that is not an unusual thing. Dialects, idiolects and grammaticalization all effect usage choices. I'm more interested in general...

-------- as Function:pronoun 1 a : THAT, WHO, WHICH -- used to introduce an adjectival clause and having same or such as antecedent <their children should grow up in the same intellectual culture as they have enjoyed -- G.B.Jeffery> <tears such as angels weep burst forth...

Yes; "dialect" relates to vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and accent. Accent relates partly to pronunciation, and partly to intonation. MrP

I have trouble figuring out why 'grammar experts' get the blame for these. There are a number of reasons why people might disagree over these usages: colloquial vs written, American vs British, PC vs non-PC, prescriptivism vs descriptivism, and even one or two examples where there are...

Not so much regionalism as presciptivism, Chariot. Many language proficiency tests, especially foreign-conceived ones, are based on a grammar that is outdated and overly restrictive; their vocabularies are based on bilingual dictionaries written in the 1940s or 50s. They do not reflect the...

My high school Chinese teacher asked me to help her translate these two abstracts from Chinese into English. I have finished, but I need to correct them into better English. Please help me. I have to give my teacher the translation. She helped me quite a lot while I encountered the most...

%He isn't ill, isn't he? The above sentence is quoted from The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Cambridge University Press 2002. The symbol % indicates the status of the following example: He hadn't many friends. According to the second edition of Practical English Usage,...

R.G. wrote:Hi ~~!Which kind of Br. accent shall I follow? There are many regional accents/dialects and there are 'social' accents in Britain. If you want to be widely understood, I suggest that you try to avoid all strong regional accents when learning. However, it is good to be...

I am not quite close to 'homeless'. I am living at my aunt's home because my granny invited 3 of her siplings to stay... aiya, according to my parents this is going to last 2 weeks or more. I am currently using my uncle's PC just to get here and take a look at what you say. Though I cannot come...